Power driven casing measuring machine



M. L. BROCK. 1,913,829

June 13, 1933.

POWER DRIVEN CASING MEASURING MACHINE 3 Sheets-Sheet 1 Filed Oct. 17, 1929 June 13, 1933. M. L. BROCK POWER DRIVEN CASING MEASURING MACHINE June 13, 1933. M. L. BRocK POWER DRIVEN CASING MEASURING MACHINE Fild Oct. 17, 1929 5 Sheets-Sheet s Patented June 13, 1933 UNITED STATES MELVILLE LLE E LYn BROOK,

COMPANY, or CHICAGO, ILLINOIS, A

OF CHICAGO,

ILLINOIS, nssreivon To SWIFT" a,

conronn'rron or ILLINOIS rowan DRIVEN casino MEASURING Macrame Application filed October 17, '1929.- Serial 110.400 130.

This inventionrelates. to a power driven casing measuring machine andmore particularly to improved construction of easing measuring machines whereby the apparatus 15 may be operated more efficiently to give accurate indications. of the measured lengths.

Itis ordinary practice to take animal casings which have been graded and sorted into piles of lengths which may run from 6 to 45 feet and then to form bundles of casings, each bundle-havin approximately the total number of desire feet, such as for example 300 feet in eachbundle. In prior apparatus it has been customary tocarry out the operation manually, which necessarily results ina low speed of output. It has further been necessary to drain the strings of casings for a period of time prior to making up the bundles.

It is an object of the present invention to provide apparatus in whichthe measuring operation is automatically carried out by power means so that the operator does not need to pull the entire lengths of strings through the apparatus. 7

It is further an object of the present invention to provide apparatus for measuring casings in which each string is .passed'between measuring rolls and wound upon a power driven drum until the desired length of casings has been obtained as shown by an indicator, whereupon the, bundle may be removed from the drum andtied up. I n

Anadditionalobject of the present invention consists in an improved construction of the drum upon which the strings of casings are wound. The drum is collapsible inorder to permit an easy removal of the casings from the drum. r

Y An additional object of the present invention consists in. an improved construction whereby strings of casings may be automatically measured and counted to obtain highly accurate results. 4

Additional advantages of the improved construction will be more readily apparent from the appended drawings, in which Figure 1 is a plan view. ofthe improved apparatus;

Figure 2 1s aside elevationofithe apparatus illustrated in Figure 1; V

Figure 3 is an elevation on an enlarged scale of'a portion of the apparatus constituting the measuring means; I 4

- Figure 4 is an elevation of the measuring mechanism partly in section looking at the inner face of the measuring mechanism, the winding mechanism being omitted;

Figure 5 is a detail endv'iew of the winding drum;- I

Figure 6 a longitudinalv section through '60 the'windingdrum shown in Figure 5; and- Figure? is a front View of the dial and indicator.

The apparatus as illustrated comprises a base 10 upon which is mounted measuring 05 means generally indicated 11 and winding means generally indicated 12. The base 10 may be supported by the legs 13 at a suitable heightv for the convenience of the operator. The measuring andcountingmeans 11 will be first described. I I

As more clearly shown in Figure 4 a U- shaped standard 14 is secured upon the base 10 and includes upstanding legs 15 connected by a crossbar 16.; The legs 15 provide a support at bearings 17 for-a horizontal screw shaft 18. Aawheel 19 isca'rried by a stud shaft 20 which is mounted in the left hand bearing 17 in such. a manner that the wheel 19 may rotate freely with respect to the screw shaft18 and therefore constitutes an idler wheeLj The studshaft 2Q is provided with an annular groove 20 which is engaged. by a pm 20 mounted in the adjacent side 15 of the standard 14 and adapted to hold the stud shaft against longitudinal movement, as clearly illustrated in Fig. 4 of the drawings. Mounted at the uppersend oflegs 15 of the standards are the journal boxes21 mounting a transverse shaft 22:which carries upon its lefthand, end extending beyond the leg 15 a measuring wheel 23. The upper wheel 23 -15 of thesame diameter as the lower wheel 19 and rotates in contact with the periphery. of the lower wheel. Preferably the contacting, cylindrical surfaces of the wheels 19 and are covered by felt indicatedqat 24. It is therefore apparent that the end of a casing :may be passed between the wheels 19 and 23 in the-manner shown in Figure 2 and upon pulling the entire length of the string of casings between the wheels the rotation of the upper Wheel 23 may be measured in order to indicate the length of the string.

Therefore I have provided indicating means illustrated in Figures 4 and 7. The shaft 22 is provided at its middle portion with a worm 25 which rotates in mesh with a gear 26 carried by a spindle 27 which is held atthe upper end of a supporting bracket 28. The bracket 28 is secured to the cross piece 16 by the bolts 29. The spindle 27 which carries the indicator hand is held against rotation but the gear 26 may freely rotate with the spindle. Upon the outer face of the gear is a dial 30 as shown in Figure 7 which is graduated along the circular edge from 0 to 300 and the graduations in the present instance refer to measurement in feet. It will be readily understood that the dial may be graduated in any desired manner according to the total length required in the bundles. A pointer 31 is fixed to the spindle 27 and ex tends vertically upward to enable an accurate reading to be taken. For the present purpose the dial is designed to rotate when measuring the casings in a clockwise direction and therefore indicates to the operatorthe additional number of feet required in each bundle. Thus after 210 feet have been passed through the apparatus the indicator will read 90 feet, meaning that 90 more feet of strings are required in the bundle.

In order to direct the casing as it is fed to the apparatus a guide 32 is suitably held by a bracket 32? attached to the frame and extends closely adjacent to the contacting portions of the measuring wheels. It is cesired that some means be provided for counting the number of strings as well as measuring'the total length, therefore I have pro vided a U-shaped supporting bracket 33 carrying a standard form of counter 34 which is actuated by a register lever 35. The lever 35 extends sufficiently close to the guide for the casing so that the operator will actuate the counter by hishand when'feeding the end of each string between the measuring wheels. 50

In order to prevent overrunning of the measuring wheel 23 when the end of a string is reached I have formed ratchet teeth 36 on the inner side of the wheel 23 which are engaged by a pin carried by a pivoted lever 38 which acts as a stop member. The stop member 38 is pivotally mounted on a fixed pivot 39 mounted on the adjacent leg 15 of the standard '14 and the weight of the stop member is such that it will normally fall into latching position except when the casing is being fed through the apparatus. The end of the stop 38 is provided with a U-shaped guiding strip 41 and the string of casing is passed between the wheels 23 and 19 beneath the U-shaped piece 41 and therefore serves to lift the stop member and allow the casing to be pulled between the measuring wheels. The end of the casings, after passing beneath the end of the stop member is directed over an idler roll 42 carried by the end of an arm 43 which extends from one-of the legs 15 of the standard. The casing is then fed towards a winding drum 44 which is power driven by a motor 45'. v

The winding drum 44 .is of ani'mpro'ved construction, the details of which will be subsequently referred to, but for the present it is only necessary to understand that the drum is carried by a horizontal shaft 46 which is mounted in a suitable bearing 47 carriedon the base 10 and'extends toa reducing box 48. The motor 45 is connected by 'a driving shaft 49 and a universal coupling 50 to a shaft 51 extending into the reducing box 48. Any type of ordinary clutch indicated generally 52 may be included in the drive from the reducing box '48 to the shaft46= and is operated by the arm 53. Thearm 53 is in turn actuated. by a lever 54 carried by an actuat ng rod 55. The motor'is in continuous clutch is automatically thrown out of en" gagement and this means is associated with the measuring means in a manner such'as illustrated in Figure 4. q

In this figure a sprocket gear 56 is carried by the upper shaft 22 and is connected to r0- tate a lower sprocket gear 57 by a chain drive 58.. The lower-gear 57 is secured to the screw shaft 18. Automatic stop means indicated generally at 58 is mounted'on standard 14 such that in starting the measuring operation the stop mechanism 58 is pushed to theleft in Figure 4 and will travel'due to engagement with thescrew shaft to the rightwhile the casings are being measured. l/Vhen the 1110 desired length of casings hasbeen measured a stop 59' will engage the adjustment screw 60 of an arm 61 which isconnected tojthe cross rod 55 and cause the release of clutch52.-

The stop mechanism 58 includes'a frame 62 which, is mounted for sliding movement along standard 14 and carries a pivoted member 63 mounted by the pivot 64." The frame 62 which is supported upon the bottom connecting portion of the U-shapedstandard 14 slides in a groove in the upper face of the bottom connecting portion of the said standard 14 as clearly indicated in dotted lines in- Fig. 4 of the drawings. The frame62.which"is approximately U-shapedforms aguide for c a half nut 62*, which is adapted to be moved into and out of mesh with the s'crew shaft 18. A spring 65 normally holds the member 63 in such a position that the half nut portion 62 carried thereby will engage the threads of the shaft 18. The operator may release the en'- gagement between the stop mechanism and the screw shaft 18 by pushing on the downwardly extending arm of the pivoted member 63 in order to return the stop mechanism to the initial position at the left-hand end.

The construction of the winding drum will now be described particularly having reference to Figures 5 and 6 in which appears a driving shaft 46 having pinned thereto a fixed collar 66 and slidably mounted on the shaft 46 at the outer end thereof is a collar 67. An axial opening 68 is provided in the shaft 46 and receives a rod 69 carrying an operating handle 70. Slots 71 are formed in the shaft 46 and receive pins 72 which connect the operating rod to the sliding collar 67. The drum itself comprises a plurality of sections and in the described embodiment there are shown three sections 73 each being of identical construction. Each section is carried at its inner end by a pair of supporting arms 74 which are fixedly secured to the collar 66 but are pivotally attached to the sections by means of pins 75 which fasten the arms 74 to the brackets 76. Thus each section may swing inwardly towards the aXis of the drive shaft by pivoting about the pins 75. The drum is normally held with the sections in the outer position forming a cylinder by means of levers 77. Each of the levers 77 is pivotally attached to one of the sect-ions 73 by the pin 78 and is also pivotally attached to the sliding collar 67 by a pin 79. It will be apparent that an inward movement of the operating rod 69 will cause the sections to move inwardly and thus collapse the drum. This construction is especially desirable since it enables a quick and efficient removal of the casings after they have been wound on the drum. The dotted lines in Figure lillustratethe expanded position of the drum. t

In operation the automatic stop 58 is first pushed to the left-hand end of the threaded shaft 18 and locked to the screw shaftso it will travel to the right as the screw shaft is rotated. The motor is running constantly and the clutch may be thrown into engagement when the automatic stop is out of contact with lever 61 and thus the winding drum will be rotated. The operator who has previously graded his casings according to length takes a string of the desired length and feeds it into the guide 32 thereby actuating the counter-mechanism. The'stop for the measuring wheel is released as the end of the string is pulled between the wheels. The string is passedbeneath the end of the stop member and over the idler roller 42 and fed towards the winding drum. The drum is suitably covered so the string will adhere to the drum to enable the remainder of the string to be pulled between the measuring wheels. As the end of the casings or strings pass from between the wheels the stop lever 38 will drop and prevent further rotation of the indicator dial. The operator continues feeding strings through the measuring apparatus whileobserving the indications of the dial until the desired total length is obtaned. At this point, the winding drum automatically comes to a stop through the disengagement of theclutch by the operation of the stop mechanism 58. The op'eratorwill then collapse the winding drum by pushing inward the operating rod 69 and pull ofiithc the coil of casings which is then bundled and packed.

Although I have described a preferred embodiment of the apparatus, it will be apparent that many changes and modifications may be made without departing from the spirit of my invention as expressed in the appended claims.

I claim:

1. In an apparatus of the class described,

tion of said pulling means when a predeter mined total length of material has been measured.

2. In an apparatus of the class described, measuring means, means for guiding strings of material successively tothe measuring means, a winding drum for pulling the material through the measuring means, means die rectly operable by the material being measured for permitting measurement registration only while the material is passing through the measuring means, and means for automatically stopping the operation of said winding drum when a predetermined total length of material has been measured.

3. In an apparatus of the class described, a pair of measuring Wheels rotatable in peripheral contact, guide means extending closely adjacent to the contacting portion of the measuring wheels for directing strings of material between the measuring wheels, means indicating the rotation of one of the measuring wheels and calibrated to indicate by direct reading the total length of material passed through the measuring wheels, means for stopping said measuring wheel and said indicator when no material is passing through the measuring Wheels, means for pulling thestrings of material through the measuring wheels and means'for automatically stopping the operation of the pulling means when a desired total length of material has been measured.

4. In apparatus of the class described, a pair of measuring wheels mounted to be rotated by the passage of material therebetween, power operated means for pulling the strings of material between said Wheels, means associated With sald measurlng wheels for disengagement of the power operated H means to automatically stop the operation When a desired total length of material has been measured, and separate means for automatically stopping the measuring Wheels temporarily after each string of material Without stopping the pulling means.

Signed at Chicago, Illinois, this 14th day of October, 1929.

MELVILLE LLEWELLYN BRO CK. 

